Brazil

Brazil is the largest country in Latin America. Known as a "continent-country", it is the fifth-largest country on the planet, after Russia, Canada, the United States and China. With an area of 8,547,404 km², it covers half of South America and shares borders with Uruguay and Argentina to the south, Paraguay to the south-southwest, Bolivia to the west-southwest, Peru to the west, Colombia to the west-northwest, Venezuela to the northwest, Guyana to the north-northwest, and Suriname and France to the north (through French Guiana), which means it borders most of the countries on the continent, except Chile and Ecuador. The country has a population of more than 215 million people. A former Portuguese colony, Brazil has Portuguese as its official language, while most Latin American countries have Spanish.

In 2017, according to the IMF, Brazil's GDP was 2,054 billion US dollars, making it the eighth-largest economy in the world. Regarded as a major emerging power, the country is a member of the United Nations, Mercosur, the G20 and the BRICS. In military terms, the Brazilian armed forces rank among the twenty largest in the world and remain the most important in the Americas, second only to the United States. Along with China, India and Russia, Brazil is considered one of the few countries with the potential to become a global superpower one day.

The Brazilian population is marked by great ethnic and cultural diversity: according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), Brazil is 47.7% white, 43.1% mixed-race, 7.6% black and about 2% Asian and Indigenous. A large number of Brazilians descend from European countries, mainly Portugal, followed by Italy, Germany and Spain. Most black Brazilians, for their part, have roots in Sub-Saharan Africa, mainly Angola. Like its neighbours, Brazil is a predominantly Christian country (89%). With 123 million believers, it is the second-largest Christian nation in the world (after the United States, where most of the population is Protestant) and the largest Catholic nation.

Rich in natural resources, Brazil has been identified as a new oil power. Huge pre-salt oil reserves were discovered in the Santos and Campos basins, off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. Recoverable reserves have been revised upwards again and again: in 2013 they were estimated at 106 billion barrels, according to the IEA, "which means more reserves have been discovered in Brazil than in any other country", the IEA points out.